Sonos Unveils Connected Home Listening Partnerships

At an event held in New York today, Sonos unveiled software innovations including voice control and partner app integrations that make it easy for listeners to navigate, discover and share music in their homes.

The company also demonstrated how partners, including Crestron, Lutron, Savant, Control4, iPort, Deutsche Telekom’s QIVICON Amazon and Spotify, are building new connected home experiences on the Sonos platform.

“With the unprecedented growth in streaming, music has become abundant and immediate,” said Sonos Chief Executive Officer John MacFarlane. “Together with a growing ecosystem of partners, we’re making sure Sonos owners can easily play the music they love out loud in every room in the home, and intuitively control that experience using our app, our partners’ apps, touch and voice.”

At the event, Sonos announced the company’s first-ever endorsed partner integrations with connected home leaders Crestron, Lutron, Savant, Control4, iPort and Deutsche Telekom’s QIVICON. These joint collaborations seamlessly integrate Sonos’ sound platform into the connected home, making it even easier for customers to control their music at home, whether from a touchscreen panel, a light switch or a remote control, all with the simple push of a button.

“Custom installers are at the vanguard of making the connected home a reality,” said Sonos President Patrick Spence. “For years they have worked tirelessly to bring disparate technologies together, and are pushing hard to make smart homes both accessible and ubiquitous. Our work together ensures our sound platform integrates well with their systems now and in the future.”

Sonos owners with an Alexa-enabled device such as an Amazon Echo or Echo Dot will soon be able to use Amazon’s popular Alexa service to control their Sonos sound system, the companies announced. The software integration – collaboratively built from the ground up using the Alexa Voice Service (AVS) SDK– taps into both Sonos’ and Alexa’s existing music capabilities so owners don’t have to learn additional commands or key words. Simply ask Alexa to play your music from Amazon Music, Spotify and more and it will flow to any group of Sonos speakers in the home. By integrating Alexa into their Sonos sound systems, owners can use their voice to play, pause, skip, control volume and more. The companies will begin rolling out the experience through an invite-only beta test later this year, with general availability in 2017.

Other news unveiled at the New York event includes new Spotify Connect integration with additional functionality that will make it the only whole home sound system that can be fully controlled directly from the Spotify app (coming in October through Sonos’ public beta program); the direct control of all streaming services across native apps including Pandora; and an Airbnb partnership that would see new hosts receiving Sonos systems.

Sonos has also joined the Open Music Initiative, an organization founded in June 2016 by Berklee’s Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship with the goal of dramatically simplifying the way music creators and rights owners are identified and compensated for their art. As a member, Sonos will champion high-quality music experiences.

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